Tag Archives: family

It all starts with the grocerystore clusterfluck. I’m referring to the mass of non-regular customers leisurely strolling the aisles with the entire maternal side of their family in tow.

On the other end of the spectrum is the daddy-deer-in-headlights; the lost looking male sent to the front lines to retrieve forgotten items. These guys are like a stubborn hair clog in the bathroom sink. We’ll call them solitary clusterflucks. During non-holiday shopping trips I’d have compassion for them, but unfortunately, it’s the holiday season and the only rule of shopping during the holidays is get in and get out, like your life depends on it.

The clusterfluck commences in the check-out line which is bustling with extra bodies. How many people does it take to pay? The answer is ONE, meaning all inactive shopping companions should skedaddle.

With all your might, you finally push the katrillion calorie shopping cart with-the-bad-wheel to the outermost border of the parking lot where you were forced to retreat, which is called the parking-in-BFE clusterfluck.

Also, the more traffic in a parking lot, the more likely an inattentive holiday clown will step out in front of your car and end up as a hood ornament. Live hood ornaments are right up there with Rudolph’s antlers tacked to your mirror and/or Santa’s testicles dangling from your muffler.

This is also called the tacky hood ornament clusterfluck.

When you finally slide into home base and attempt to unload your groceries, there’s nowhere to put anything because of the kitchen-counter clusterfluck and the refrigerator clusterfluck.

As soon as you begin foodprep, the overflowing dirty-dishes clusterfluck is immediately created and will regenerate for another 48-72 hours, making it the biggest clusterfluck of all. I despise washing dishes. I’m a huge fan of serving left-overs on paper plates, which incidentally causes a trash can clusterfluck, but what are you gonna do?

We’re picking our battles here.

Other painful holiday clusterflucks include the obvious dinner table fiasco, where you attempt to squeeze 15 people around an 8 seater table. “No fair… I want to sit near Suzy Lou Hoo!” This is called the intimate-encounter clusterfluck and also the reason I bought the big bottle of vodka.

Then there’s the dreaded people-who-don’t-belong-in-the-kitchen clusterfluck, which is why I leave a bag of unpeeled potatoes on the table. Everyone knows as soon as guests arrive, they immediately invade your sanctuary and try to be helpful.

“Grab a potato peeler. We’ve got a clusterfluck and a half of potatoes to peel,” says me.

To clear up any confusion, the tryptophan found in turkey not only makes you sleepy, it can give you the urge to dive off the roof of Macy’s during the Thanksgiving Day parade right into inflatable Underdog’s ass, which would be affectionately termed the contipatedballoon character clusterfluck.

And no, you will not catch me out and about on Black Friday. That’s an entirely separate clusterfluck in itself.